I was behind someone in the queue at the bank who was paying in money to cover a bill, but it had already been rejected due to no funds. The cashier told him that if a bill is due out there needs to be money in the account first thing in the morning so it would be better to put the money in the day before to make sure it is covered.

And as others have said anything after 3/3.30pm is not registered until the next day.

was the bill paid via direct debit or similar? (ie you or DH didn't draw our cash on monday to pay it?) - as long as you didn't withdraw cash, this shouldn't have happened - a lot of banks process payments in and out of theur accounts in one job lot each day - essentially they show up as coming in (or out) at midnight. BUT banks are supposed to process credits first, to avoid exactly this type of situation - for years some banks were getting away with charging customers of 'being overdrawn' of essentially a few seconds (between the debit being applied and the credit being applied afterwards) - AFAIK ALL UK banks are now obliged to process in this order now.

Most banks have a 3/3.30pm cut off time for transactions done in branch. They should have pointed that out to you though and then you could have paid the bill in person at the post office or something.

There is a cut off of 3/3.30 but I woul try complaining about the charges and see if it gets you anywhere.

Not your situation, but in one of his books Jon Ronson says he was told that the whole 3-day clearing time, for when you are transferring funds electronically (rather than actual cash as in your sitch) is actually totally unnecessary now, as in our digital age everything is transferred in a nanosecond, but the banks continue to enforce the 3-day rule as it earns them more in interest/fees. What a bunch of ripoff merchants they are.

ShutupandDrive is right - if the Direct Debit came out on monday it will have come out 1st thing therefore you would be overdrawn -I'd read your post as if the debit was coming out on Tuesday, in which case you wouldn't be IYSWIM - sorry if I confused the issue!!!!

If it was a monday debit it would still do no harm to go in, ask nicely and hope for the best

LTSB adds it to the balance as soon as you pay it in. I would query the charges especially if the direct debit shows as being claimed on the same day as the cash went in (take the receipt showing you paid the cash in on the Monday prior to the DD being claimed)